Somewhere Someplace

All the power is in your hands

Yet, much like that which you face

You are not using it in full

Much like that which you face

Something else is driving your rotting soul within

I wonder, how much you can see in this space

That mirror you stand to face

And so I wonder…what is it to which you truly aspire,

Within this sudden climax of a moment?

And so I ask…what is it for which you truly desire,

Within your own glowing heart of torment?

So sudden…it had been…first the mage had been impaled and lanced straight up to the domed roof above…only for a shout to precede a booming shot to the colossus’s head…only for it to retaliate in kind with a magical lancing beam from its single remaining eye…followed by an explosion that had torn and ripped through air…a shockwave that tremored all around, piercing ears and spines alike…as that entry-hole…was blown asunder with raining debris.

Everything had unraveled so quickly…the minds of the two remaining survivors struggled to really grasp…all that had just happened. They remained frozen…still processing as the crystal colossus, radiating in magical snow-dusty fury, immediately began to make way…right towards them. Truly…they had been reminded…of how utterly beneath it they truly were.

Silent dread…filled the air…as the priestess tumbled down to her legs…jaws and limbs trembling with fixed widened eyes that began to flow with broken tears…her mouth and mind frantically reciting prayer after prayer after prayer yet no words could leave her paralyzed tongue and voice.

The shield adventurer…silent…he simply stared the colossus down and readied his shield in…his mind…still trying to comprehend, yet he remained…as focused as he could.

The foreigner…stared at the once-existent entry-hole from which the wagoneer had been overwatching only but moments prior. He…was her subordinate in this situation…she was the one…who had dragged him here. Yet…oddly…she had no response…neither in body nor mind nor soul…she simply stared…as everything began to feel…so very…unreal and detached…as if reality…no longer truly existed…as if she no longer truly existed; everything…simply went…numb.

Though, their stunned and battered minds would not be given any room for breathing pause…for only a few dozen seconds after all of this had suddenly befallen…pulsating crystalline rods, spears, lances, and spikes…came lancing as the colossus’s march…abruptly turned into…a tremoring charge.

“FERTILITY’S STILLBORN BASTARD!! SHIT SHIT SHIT!” the shield adventurer shouted in sudden panic as crystal projectiles lanced and burst all around, tormentingly so…as if the colossus was purposely missing them.

His eyes immediately ignited into partial activation once again…the heart of his magical shield igniting in kind as its magical barrier yet again stretched and extended to absorb the sudden crystalline barrage, each and every kinetic slam and punch being partially transferred to his equipt arm.

“Trinity’s damnation…we are all going to die…I am truly…going to die…so soon…” the shattered priestess mumbled out loud as she remained frozen and paralyzed, her mind unable to keep up…with how fast everything…was unraveling around…just like the time before.

The foreigner, still frigidly silent, merely began to painstakingly reload her revolver…faster than as fast as possible…readying herself to countercharge and lance back into action, her mind…no longer truly thinking as much as…operating with a total deference to automaticity; her mind…absent even though…it was still present.

Crystal projectiles of all kinds relentlessly bombarded the barrier as the shield’s core became…increasingly more unstable and volatile...the barrier itself changing color and properties...overwhelmed…it was clearly about to give out…soon…though not before the colossus would reach them…for indeed…its tremoring charge was growing ever-close…very quickly.

The shield adventurer panicked…his mind frantically thinking and cogitating…the colossus was descending upon them…the barrier…on the verge of giving out…had he had not any the time to think or even decide…only simply…act.

He snapped his head back…seeing the foreigner frantically reloading her revolver; “DON’T BOTHER! THAT WON’T MAKE SHIT! USELESS!” he commandingly shouted in a panic…the foreigner instantly halting her doings as she stared…with flat affect.

Seconds…seconds…seconds…the tremors of its charge drew closer…he had not the time…he had not the time…“Y-Y-YOU! YOU’RE FAST AND AGILE! MORE THAN ANY OF US! STRONGER THAN I THOUGHT TOO! I BET YOU CAN CLIMB UP AND DOWN, THAT’S WHY YOU EVEN CAME DOWN HERE SO CALMLY, RIGHT?! IF TRUE THEN JUST GRAB HER AND TRY TO CLIMB OUT OF HERE!! I’LL HOLD IT OFF! JUST GO! NOW!” he shouted to the foreigner in frantic desperate command.

The priestess’s shattered eyes…stared up at him; “H-huh?? W-w-w-w-what-are-you-suggest—” she was frantically replying yet…before she could finish, the foreigner had immediately responded. Holstering her half-reloaded revolver, she yanked and grabbed the somewhat taller priestess, forcing her onto her back…figure squishing against her backpack…as she swiftly began to dash and stride with a faint cyanic trail.

The foreigner kept behind the barrier’s shadow to avoid incoming spikes…distancing herself from both the colossus and the shield adventurer as much as she could…within this space.

The priestess, silent and unable to protest, held on tightly with both hands as her holy staff dangled from its connected strap…staring back at he who was being left behind…unable to blame anyone but herself…having failed so utterly…at her one of her only duties…thus lamented her thoughts.

The foreigner lanced and strode…cyanic wisp-dusty radiance flaking ever-more vibrantly as the arcane nature of her agile speed and strength became…somewhat ever-more apparent. She abruptly took a sharp turn to the side…reaching one of chamber’s smooth and hard-to-climb walls…halting as she, faster-than-fast, eyed it up…analyzing; she quickly located a potential climbable route up.

Immediately, she began to climb up the ostensibly unclimbable…carefully…yet efficiently…as the priestess held on for dear life…her weight pushing down against the climbing foreigner, who…nevertheless…managed to endure. The priestess’s tearful widened eyes remained fixated on the events befalling behind and now down below.

Interim

As soon as the foreigner had departed away with the priestess on back, the shield adventurer refocused his partial-ignited eyes to the front…his overwhelmed barrier energizing and destabilizing as it began to give out from the unrelenting barrage.

He unsheathed his magical sword…as his eyes partially ignited further in potency…his lips, tongue, and mouth following in synchrony with activating words uttered not in voice but in mind. Engravings in his magical sword began to glow…as wisps of faint…barely noticeable...sleep-walking essence of adventurer yellowy-green flow from his aura and being…and into his strange sword, flaking from his skin and muscles in kind.

He twitched somewhat as his muscles suddenly…began to cramp painfully but…in the aftermath, feeling harder, more durable, and more capable. His heart and lungs felt stronger and more efficient; his strength, focus, dexterity, agility, speed, all such things…were augmented and enhanced…as skill after skill…were activated.

The colossus’s tremoring charging steps shook the floor as it rapidly descended upon him; it slowed down…as its crystal sword was clearly being primed for a charging strike, the barrage so seemingly stopping.

The shield adventurer, however, took this moment and deactivated his shield’s mana barrier before he instantly lanced in a flaring countercharge of adventure-green glimmer, unleashing his pent-up affect as he let loose a charging cry and shout. “MAY THE GODS’ CAST YOU INTO THE INFERNAL ABYSS! YOU DEMON-ASS-RAPED GOLEM!” he shouted out with all his lungs as loud as he could.

He dashed as he lunged up into the air as time began to slow and slow…his magical sword flowing with his mana…as he made ready for one single decisive lancing strike…straight towards the colossus’s core and heart…pouring all manners of power into this single attack.

The colossus’s own large crystal sword…seemingly made ready…to strike a cutting blow in kind at the lancing man…as time slowed and slowed…halting to an apparent crawl. Yet…he noticed too late…that this entire…maneuver…was nothing…but a meagre feint and that…he had been baited into doing exactly…what the colossus wanted.

Swiftly, the colossus snatched the lancing adventurer mid-air with its other crystalline hand; so fast and sudden this had been…the shield adventurer was injured from the kinetic impact of the squeezing snatch alone.

The colossus charged right passed his prior position…slowing down to a pause…as its single glowing eye stared at the wiggling and struggling shield adventurer now grasped in hand; taunting and shouting, he coughed out traces of blood as his injured body and insides…were being squeezed by its tightening grip, his heavy plate armor…even popping and bending.

“LET ME GO AND FIGHT ME LIKE A REAL KNIGHT YOU DICKLESS HORROR!” the wiggling shield adventurer tauntingly shouted with bleeding voice.

Yet, the crystalline colossus stared blankly at the shield adventurer…doing absolutely nothing…as he continued to relentlessly struggle and wiggle…taunting and shouting away as he tried to break free, despite knowing it was all for naught.

Its grip loosened…yet still held firm…as its eye stared. Its heart-core…began to pulsate stronger…yet…differently than before…along with all the veins and nerves of essence rooted within…something was happening on the inside as it stared.

It was reminded…of something…something that…it was not supposed to remember… memories that only…brought more frustrations and despair...for the more it stared…the more it was reminded...of its tormented fate; it was reminded of all that had been stolen from it all those ages ago. Bitter envy and absolute contempt…yet even then…it struggled to comprehend these feelings that so seemingly drove it.

“QUIT STARING AT ME AND JUST FINISH IT! IF NOT THEN DUEL ME! ONE TO ONE! YOU DICKLESS UNALIVE FALSE KNIGHT!” the shield adventurer shouted as he continued to struggle and squirm. The colossus snapped out of this strange trance as its large crystalline helmet-head quickly turned its single glowing eye…to peer afar…having long noticed that the foreigner was trying to climb out…yet, it was surprised of just how far she had managed to climb in such a short time; she was actually close to reaching one of the lowest entry-holes.

The colossus promptly dropped its sword…before it opened its grip, seating the shield adventurer on its crystalline palm…before nabbing his legs with two fingers, dangling him upside down. The man squirmed and wiggled in protest…his magical sword still hand; yet before he could do anything with it…the colossus simply snapped that very arm with its other hand…the sword dropping down.

Suddenly, a throbbing and pulsatingly energized crystalline rod protruded out from the ground…before detaching as it ‘floated’ all the way up and in place, just underneath the dangling shield adventurer.

It lowered him down and down until his mouth had not the choice but to make contact with the thin, sharp, and pointed crystal rod…before it suddenly lunged up and impaled straight through, popping off some of his bottom armor…never mind…bloodied organs. Twitching, gagging, choking, making all manners of abhorrent noises…he was clearly still alive…even if the shock and trauma was claiming him quickly.

“…Trinity’s salvation on his soul…Father…in Heaven…what…cruelty…” the priestess mumbled out in absolute dread and broken shock, her widened eyes tearing up ever-more …as she witnessed all of this unravel from behind…and continued to witness…as that same floating crystalline rod—with the shield adventurer impaled—turned its aim…straight at her and she.

“…v-v-v-v-VIGILANT! IT’S THROWING!” she shouted in panic.

The foreigner, so very close to her target point, hearing and understanding…immediately let go of her grip as she dashed off from her position…both hands holding onto the priestess in support, her boots skidding against the wall as she slid down.

Instantaneously, that same crystal rod came lancing as it smashed right above them…bursting and shattering explosively. The shockwave and kinetic impact caused the foreigner to lose already tenuous bearing as both she and the priestess came tumbling down as torched crystalline debris and…the bits and pieces of the…shield adventurer…all came raining down.

They tumbled and rolled back down onto the ground…not so pleasantly. Dazed, staggered, disoriented, disorganized, vision blurry…they had only narrowly avoided major injuries due to the foreigner’s preemptive drop, slide, and maneuvering…despite hurting…all over.

The foreigner could still move and operate, however...which was all that mattered to her. She quickly came to and flung herself right back onto her feet…as towering footsteps…tremored the crystalline ground ever closer.

The priestess was bruised and scraped…debris having pummeled her somewhat…still staggered…yet still alive. Her mind struggled to process…everything…her raspy and heavy breaths panted and panted. She stumblingly sat herself back up…staring up…as the colossus towered closer and closer…slowly marching as it dragged its sword’s blade against the ground…its glowing eye…staring them down.

The priestess yeeped…her eyes flowing with silent tears…as she began to frantically slide and crawl herself backwards…until her back slammed right into the smooth crystalline wall behind, trembling in absolute dread. “I…I…don’t want to die-I don’t want to die! Oh Trinity…please please! I don’t want to die in such a way!!” she clamored frantically as her voice choked in panicked breaths.

The foreigner remained in place; cyanic wisps…flaked from her bruised and scraped skin…as she stood tall, staring it down as it approached. She could hear echoing from behind…all those…dread-filled noises of the priestess’s panicked and choking…voice. That sense of realized impending doom…that realization of impending death by the hands…of an overwhelming predator that relished in toying with its prey.

Indeed…neither a sobbing shout nor a crying call…merely noises uttered by a mind…unraveling and short-circuiting…paralyzed utterly.

Truly…she hated those noises…those…denizen sounds that pierced her ears…flashing into mind…all those…other moments buried in time. Truly…if she could just get that one denizen out of here alive…then maybe…just maybe…all of that which had happened…all of that which had been lost and forsaken…would be…maybe…just somewhat worth it…by the end of it all.

Yet, the crystalline walls…all around…were so seemingly changing and mutating; they glowed and wisped in snow-dusty exoticism…as they became so thoroughly smooth…that it was, in every sense of the word, impossible to climb with hands…even for the foreigner; after all, she still needed something grab onto in order to even climb at all.

They were now completely entrapped and boxed-in; there was no way out besides that very entry corridor out from which the colossus had charged…and it was clear that the colossus was not at all going to let them get that far.

Thus…all she could do now…was hold firm and stand her ground, to delay the inevitable for as long as she so feasibly could…until the bitter end…once again…as always, for such was…all that she…all that they…ever seemed to be able to do.

Yet, in the end, you all had failed…even in that